


Evergreen

by Kangofu_CB



Series: Tell Me That It's All For Me [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Avengers Family, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton's low self esteem, Dirty Talking Bucky Barnes, Dr. Strange will preserve the timeline at all costs, Gentle Dom Bucky Barnes, Idiots in Love, Intercrural Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Rimming, Steve Rogers Is So Done, but she is NOT a bro, clint is a little shit, even if he has to bear witness to things he never wanted to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: “Did you know?” Clint asks after a little while. This feels like a big moment, like the edge of a precipice, and he’s reluctant to disturb it, fearful of the result.“Did I know what?” Bucky asks, his brow scrunched up.Clint makes a vague gesture between the two of them.Bucky shakes his head.  “Not… really?”  He pauses to think about it, and Clint lets him, because he’s not sure how he feels about Bucky and him being some kind of destined thing, and he’s real sure he doesn’t feel great about Bucky knowing they were a thing before they were, you know, a thing.  “I thought I recognized you, in Germany, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it, after”Clint snorts.“I didn’t really remember anything,” Bucky says quietly, “not until we went back.  But now it’s all… it’s all in there, mostly, in bits and pieces.  I remember… knowing no matter how bad it got, that I was gonna come out the other side, cos I had you waiting for me.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Tell Me That It's All For Me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610983
Comments: 87
Kudos: 377
Collections: Mandatory Fun Day, Winterhawk Bingo





	Evergreen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1000_directions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/gifts).



> Happiest of Birthdays to Steph! I am a whole entire DAY late on this because I cannot count or read a calendar or be bothered to look at the date on any of my electronic devices.
> 
> So I'm an idiot, but I'm an idiot who loves you.
> 
> I wrote the sequel we've been screaming about and I hope you enjoy it! I love you bby <3 you deserve so many good things.

**1941**

It feels like a dream, is all. 

Bucky’d think it was a dream - the beautiful man who’d turned up in his and Stevie’s apartment and treated him like spun glass except for how he’d fucked him like he absolutely _wasn’t_ , and the older, harder, bigger version of himself directing the whole thing - if it wasn’t for the tingle on his lips that Clint had created, and the absolute _disaster_ of a bedroom they’d left behind. 

Bucky watches Clint walk out the door, following a petite redhead who exudes such a clear sense of deadly competence that Bucky’d be afraid to step in on her behalf in a fight. It’s so late it’s early - he never even had to be up this early when he worked the docks, so Bucky heads back to bed. Bed, however, is two mattresses on the floor and a load of crumpled blankets and the overwhelming scent of sex. 

He considers for maybe two seconds cleaning it up, but instead he just wraps himself up in the pile of bedding and goes back to sleep.

He is rudely awakened by the sound of their apartment door slamming and the stomping footsteps so familiar that Bucky simply rolls over and starts to drift back off, comforted in knowing that Steve is finally home. 

“Buck, what the _hell_?” is the next thing he hears, and Bucky pokes his head out of his nest of blankets to blink blearily at Steve’s outraged face.

“Don’t you ‘what the hell’ me, Stevie, you were gone all night!” Bucky grouses, but shuffles into a sitting position and yawns widely. It’s not like he got a lot of sleep, and he hasn’t got anywhere to be today. “How’s Annie?” he asks, grinning, deflecting attention from the fact that _both_ their beds are on the floor, and just about every piece of bedding they own besides. 

“Did you have a fuckin’ orgy while I was gone?” Steve continues, pointedly ignoring Bucky’s question and eyeballing the purpling bruises that are visible on what bits of his torso are uncovered. 

Bucky thinks about it.

“If you have to think about it, the answer is yes!” Steve tells him, when the silence stretches a few seconds too long. 

To be honest, Bucky’d been caught up in thinking about what had happened, not how many people had been involved, but he’s pretty sure orgy constitutes more than three people, so. “No,” he says, “I didn’t have an _orgy_.” But he can’t keep the smug out of his voice, and he knows he looks like a disheveled mess. When he shifts to pull the blanket up over his bare shoulder, he winces as a specific, prominent soreness makes itself known. 

He can’t say it wasn’t worth it, but he wonders how long it’s gonna last. If he’s walking funny for too long, someone’s gonna have somethin’ to say about it.

Steve throws his hands up in the air, clearly exasperated. “I’m sleepin’ on the goddamn couch and you’re cleanin’ this up,” he says, pointing a finger at Bucky. “Is there a clean blanket left in the place?”

Bucky glances around himself, takes in the twisted sheets and blankets, the way the beds are still pushed to opposite walls - and there’s no _way_ he and Stevie are gonna be able to put those back by themselves, they’d had to pay a couple of Bucky’s co-workers fifty cents apiece to help Bucky get them up the stairs - and the pillows strewn all over. “In the closet, maybe?” he ventures, knowing the three of them hadn’t got into the stash of extra bedding Bucky keeps for the winter months, when Steve’s liable to catch pneumonia if he can’t keep warm. 

Stomping over to the closet, Steve pulls the top quilt - the one his ma had made from old scraps of even older quilts - and holds it close to his chest, slamming the bedroom door on his way out, muttering to himself the whole time.

Collapsing back into the mattresses - and ignoring the way the crack between them is pushing into his back - Bucky sighs, content, and pushes gently at a bruise on the inside of his thigh, the faint pain sending a zing up his spine. He’s sore and achy in all the best ways, and he’s tempted to sink into a mental re-enactment of the night, dragging his fingertips over his cock through the thin cotton of his shorts, when Steve hollers from the front room, all aggravated and offended.

“Where the _fuck_ did all this food come from?”

Bucky heaves a sigh and drags himself out of bed, tucking his memories away for later as he pulls his pants up over his hips. Once he gets moving, the soreness isn’t so bad, though the _leaking_ is another story, and he figures a hot shower and some stretching ought to sort out both problems.

It’s gonna be a long day of not explaining anything to Steve Goddamn Rogers, who’s nosy as a bloodhound on a scent and twice as relentless. 

When he gets in the kitchen, Steve is digging through the pantry and the icebox with a faint look of horror on his face, and he looks up, taking in Bucky’s slight limp and the reddened marks on his throat, and immediately jumps to the wrong conclusion.

“Bucky what did you-”

“Listen Stevie,” Bucky interrupts, anxious to head this off at the pass and twice as anxious not to have the memories tainted by Steve’s worried assumptions, “I’m pretty sure I’m in love.”

**

**The Present**

When they get back to the future - the present? - whatever it is, Clint’s too tired and too fucked out to be bothered with figuring it out, he fully intends to head straight back to his room and pass out, face-down on the mattress, and sleep for ten years.

Unfortunately, Steve thinks they need to debrief.

“Tell me everything,” Steve demands, as soon as they’re settled in the conference room they’ve been herded into. “And what the fuck have you done to your hair?” he asks, staring at Bucky like he’s grown two heads. Which is fair, cos he’s been flat out refusing to cut his hair for months, despite Sam’s unrelenting barbs and Steve’s attempts at gentle encouragement.

Natasha, on the other hand, looks like the cat that got the cream. Clint just _knows_ she’s waiting for the perfect moment to spring a trap. Tony looks bored, Dr. Strange isn’t even _here_ , and Bruce is jotting down complex-looking equations on a piece of paper and ignoring them all. 

“Uh,” Clint says.

Bucky - and it’s with relief that Clint can go back to thinking of him as Bucky, although the realization brings with it a full body-flush and a jolt of arousal - looks smug as _fuck_ , but he doesn’t offer up anything to help himself or Clint out. 

“Guys,” Steve says, snapping his fingers to get their attention, “out with it. Strange said it was ‘crucially important to the preservation of the timeline’ that the two of you travel back in time for twelve hours, and that I could _not_ be the one to go pick you up.”

Clint turns wide eyes on Bucky, who’s giving him a contemplative gaze like he’s putting puzzle pieces together in his head that Clint can’t even see the shape of.

“Was it really twelve whole hours?” Clint asks, finally, because he can’t think of a single other thing to say.

They’d basically spent twelve hours engaged in the hottest, most mind-bendingly sexy threesome he’d ever been part of - not that he’d had a lot - and that was somehow _crucial to the preservation of the timeline_? 

“Huh,” Bucky says, chin tucked and gaze turned inward. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“Which part?” Steve says, obviously frustrated. “The part where it was ‘crucially important’,” and this time he uses air finger-quotes, which Clint finds inexplicably hilarious, “or the part where I couldn’t be there?”

“Both,” Bucky tells him, now doubly smug, reaching out to squeeze Clint’s knee under the table. 

“Just what in the _hell_ was-”

“They were fucking,” Natasha interrupts, looking positively gleeful under the mask of indifference. Clint can see it in the twinkle of her eye. 

“You went back in time to _have sex_ ,” Steve says, flat and unimpressed. Which, okay, that’s fair. Clint and Bucky have a lot of sex, and sometimes they have it in semi-public spaces, and sometimes they have it in semi-public spaces where Steve is almost bound to find them, because for some reason that really gets Bucky going, and Clint has long since lost all sense of shame. 

“Well-” Clint starts, but Natasha interrupts him, because she is a traitor and he is going to tell _everyone_ about Budapest after this. 

“No, they went back in time to fuck Bucky,” Natasha casually reveals, and Clint swears to _god_ if she had a nail file, she’d be using it purely for the aesthetic. 

“I think the real point here,” Clint tries, “is that Steve _lied to me_.”

Steve blinks, surprised by the subject change, and Clint really thinks, for a hot second, that he’s gonna manage to get out of this. “I did what now?”

“You told me - you let me _believe_ \- that Steve Rogers of 1941 was a sweet, innocent _virgin_ but you spent the whole night with uh, with…”

“Annie Castillo,” Bucky helpfully supplies.

“The only sweet, innocent virgin in the room in 1941 was- wait. Wait, did you say Annie Castillo?”

Tony looks positively _delighted_ by the direction this conversation is headed. “So what I’m hearing is that Clint and Bucky went back in time to get little Steve Rogers laid, is that what happened?”

“No!” Steve doesn’t quite yell, but he’s flushed and he’s dangerously close to losing his shit. Clint usually loves riling Steve up like this, but normally he’s not about to be caught in the fallout, and the fallout here is going to be epic. “Bucky didn’t even _know_ Annie Castillo, she was in my art class, she was a figure model, Bucky was-” his eyes widen with realization and Clint groans. 

Folding his arms up on the table, Clint drops his head onto them in defeat. This is it, this is how he dies. 

Of embarrassment.

It was always bound to happen this way. 

“Do you mean to tell me,” Steve says, perilously low, like he’s holding onto his control by the barest of threads, “that you went back in time to fuck _yourself_? Is that what happened to our beds?!” 

Tony squawks, nearly falls out of his seat, and then starts laughing. He starts laughing and he can’t stop, there are tears running down his face, and even Bruce has stopped working on whatever formulaic nightmare he’s been calculating to stare at them. 

Bucky looks horrified. “No, you fuckin’ mook. _Clint_ went back in time to fuck me, I was just along for the ride.”

“Literally,” Clint mutters into the table, because if he’s going down, he’s taking Bucky with him. 

“A Clint sandwich!” Tony howls, and this time he really does slide out of his seat into the floor. “Oh my god, Dr. Strange sent you back in time for a threesome, this is the best day of my life. Do you think he’d send me back in time, there were these twins at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in ‘98, and I really think-”

“Tony,” Steve growls, “shut up.”

Tony does not shut up, but he does manage to get his laughter down to snickers and hiccups, and the occasional ‘but what did you do to the beds, inquiring minds want to know’.

“How is that _crucial_ to the preservation of the _timeline_?” Steve demands, increasingly bewildered and getting angry now that he doesn’t understand. 

“Stevie,” Bucky starts.

“I’mma call him that,” Clint mumbles into his arms, “I deserve to call him that.” He doesn’t see it, but he can _feel_ Bucky rolls his eyes, and Clint nudges his leg companionably against Bucky’s. 

“Don’t _Stevie_ me, Barnes-”

“Shut up, Rogers.” Bucky says, murder growl evident in his voice. “That memory got me through a lotta shit, during the war and after, knowin’ I had somethin’ good to look forward to, that there was somethin’ on the other side. So just shut up.”

It shouldn’t be sappy, listening to Bucky tell Steve that a _threesome they traveled back in time to have_ was that important to him, especially in that tone of voice, but something in Clint’s chest uncoils, warm and loose and _good_ , and Clint can feel a stupid smile climbing across his face as realization hit him. Clint turns his head, so Bucky can see the dumb, mushy look on his face, and over Bucky’s shoulder he can see Natasha rolling her eyes but he doesn’t care. 

Bucky gives him a look back, something that’s equally soft behind the clenched jaw and the way he’s braced to have a fight with his best friend over it. “Can we go now?” Clint says, loud enough that the whole room catches it and not just Steve and Bucky. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” Tony stage-whispers, still gleeful as all hell. “Taking it from both ends - one a super soldier and the other half your age - that’s rough buddy.” He’s all false sympathy, and Clint knows he will never be allowed to forget this, ever, in a million years. 

“Alright Buck,” Steve says, defeated. “Fine, go.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the door. 

Bucky hauls Clint out of the chair and pushes him towards the door, manhandling him out of the room at a much less sedate pace than Clint would have used, but Clint resists as they pass Steve and Bucky lets him. Clint slaps Steve on the shoulder one time, the accepted manner of modern manly greeting, and says with a shit-eating grin- 

“So, Annie, huh?”

“Get out Barton, before I decide we need to do team training today.”

Clint shrugs, because he knows Steve won’t make him do _shit_ , not after Bucky’s offered up a pound of flesh in front of the team. “I hope you showed the lady a good time,” he says, still grinning as Bucky shoves him out the door of the conference room.

“One day he’s gonna call your bluff,” Bucky tells him, even as he tucks himself up against Clint’s side and slides a hand around his waist, stroking at the bare skin he finds there.

“Aw, shirt, no,” Clint whines, realizing he’s left his t-shirt in the past. It is the only white one he has left that doesn’t have any stains or holes, and it’s so comfortably worn the printed label is gone and it stretches just right over his shoulders. 

“It’s in the Smithsonian,” Bucky tells him, matter-of-factly. 

“Why the _fuck_ is my shirt in the Smithsonian?” 

Bucky keys them into their shared apartment, smirking a little. “I took it to Europe with me,” he tells Clint, like there’s nothing at all he’s ashamed of, like he’s not even a little embarrassed he took a one night stand’s t-shirt with him overseas to war. “Wore it ‘til it didn’t smell like you anymore, then I kept wearing it anyway. I think Steve eventually borrowed it because he was out of clean undershirts and he didn’t know what it was and well…” he shrugs, like it’s no big deal that Clint’s shirt from the future is in a Captain America exhibit about the past. 

“Oh,” is all Clint can think of to say. He practically swaying on his feet with exhaustion, which he’d like to blame on the time travel but realistically he knows it was probably all the sex. 

“Let’s get you to bed sweetheart,” Bucky tells him, and Clint allows himself to be led to their bedroom and stripped down to his boxers and tucked in, Bucky comfortably settled behind him. He is asleep before he knows it, with only the fleeting impression of a kiss behind his ear as Bucky removes his hearing aids.

**

It’s a few weeks before it comes up again - at least, before it comes up again between Clint and Bucky, because Tony absolutely won’t shut the fuck up about it, he talks about it over _pancakes_ as he’s stacking them on a plate, and Steve is giving them horrified looks every so often. Clint and Bucky don’t _talk_ about things. They fucked their way into a relationship, and they ‘accidentally’ moved in together because it was inconvenient to go home after a night spent in Clint’s bed together, and they don’t go on ‘dates’ so much as Clint gets hungry or Bucky gets a craving and they end up in a diner at 3am. 

So it’s both surprising and not when Bucky is leaning over Clint’s back and breathing hotly against his neck before he says anything. 

“I thought about this,” he murmurs, trailing his hands over Clint’s bare skin.

“Hmmm?” is all Clint can mange. He’s on his knees in the bed, naked and hot for it and has been for what feels like hours. Steve had finally made good on his ‘team training’ threat, and Clint’s had to watch Bucky be amazing in the gym, sparring and running and hurling the shield and _shooting_ , and what little brain capacity he’d had left is being wiped away by Bucky’s touch.

His mouth is moving down Clint’s spine now, and he’s talking louder so that Clint can still hear him, for whatever that’s worth since his mind isn’t exactly processing much. 

“I thought about this,” Bucky repeats, leaving little reverent kisses on Clint’s shoulders. “Thought about you.”

“Been thinkin’ about you all afternoon,” Clint slurs, shifting under Bucky’s capable hands. 

Bucky huffs a laugh as he moves steadily downward, leisurely, like he doesn’t have a destination in mind, and like Clint doesn’t know what it is, isn’t vibrating with anticipation.

“I meant before,” Bucky admits. “Before I ever met you in the future.” He grips Clint’s hip and rubs his cock against Clint’s bare thigh, leaving a sticky trail of precome that Clint can feel drying on his skin. He shivers. “I thought about that night.”

Clint hums. “Yeah?” he croaks, arching more into Bucky’s touch. 

“Yeah,” Bucky tells him, spreading Clint’s ass with his broad hands. Clint squirms, knowing he’s being looked at, wanting to preen and hide simultaneously, a confusing coil of emotions in his gut that ratchets his arousal even higher. Bucky presses his thumb against Clint’s rim, and Clint feels the way his body reacts, reflexively tightening and then relaxing, anticipating more touches. 

Bucky makes a contemplative sound. “I jerked off thinking about you fucking me for _years_ ,” he says, and Clint makes an inarticulate noise, something close to a whine. “Ruined me for anybody else.” He shifts, and Clint gasps as Bucky licks a hot, wet stripe across his hole, sloppy and obscene. His thumb comes back, hooking on the edge of Clint’s rim and tugging him gently open, and then his mouth follows, his tongue fucking into Clint, loosening him up even more. 

Clint is clawing at the sheets, making desperate noises into the bed beneath him, can barely contemplate the words Bucky is saying. At the same time they’re boring their way straight into his brain as he imagines the younger version of Bucky he met with his cock in his hand, working himself off to thoughts of Clint. “Oh fuck,” he groans.

“Tried that too,” Bucky agrees, his breath cool against Clint’s wet skin. It makes him shudder, the new sensation so different from the heat of his mouth. “Everything I could get my hands on for lube, getting my fingers inside myself and fucking my own brains out wishing it was you.”

Clint’s cock jerks, almost like he’s gonna come just from the thought alone. The knowledge that Bucky had been fingerfucking himself was - fuck, it was brain-meltingly hot. “Oh god, oh _fuck_.”

Bucky hums again, and then he stops talking in favor of working Clint over, mouth and tongue and fingers, until Clint is a writhing, trembling mess underneath him, begging for release. There are tears stinging his eyes and he would do _anything_ to come. And then Bucky destroys him with a few words.

“Waited my whole life for you sweetheart, cos I knew how good it was gonna be.”

Clint shatters. 

He comes so hard he can’t _see_ , the world is all white lights and static buzzing in his brain as he convulses under Bucky’s hands and mouth and the steady pistoning of his fingers.

He’s still gasping, his muscles weak and quaking underneath him, when Bucky eases him down to lie on his stomach on the bed, running tender hands over his entire body. 

Bucky’s not done with him, or at least, Clint doesn’t think so, because Clint hasn’t so much as touched him - and the soft strokes, while soothing, aren’t really intended to bring Clint down so much as to keep him warm and languid. 

“Think of it different now, though,” Bucky rumbles against Clint’s skin. 

Clint makes a vaguely inquisitive sound. He feels like someone’s poured him out of a bucket and into the bed, like human soup, unable to do anything but lie there, spent and sated. 

“Now I think about how hot you looked, fuckin’ me.” Bucky climbs over him and straddles Clint’s thighs, nudging his legs together a little closer. There’s the familiar _snick_ of lube, and then it’s dripping between his thighs as Bucky drapes himself over Clint’s back and slides his cock into the now-slick space. “How much you cared, tried to make it good and easy for me.” He presses small, affectionate kisses to the back of Clint’s neck and the sensitive place behind his ear, mindful of his hearing aids. 

Bucky’s thrusting now, gliding his dick between Clint’s thighs, and Clint has enough strength and presence of mind to cross his ankles, to make the space a little tighter, a little hotter, and Bucky groans. “Think about how well you took my dick while you were fuckin’ my brains out.” 

Clint’s breath catches in his chest, and even though there’s no way he’s getting it up again this fast his dick gives a little twitch as arousal shoots down his spine. He hitches his hips up a bit higher, arches his back into it, and Bucky’s rhythm goes all to hell, until he’s just chasing pleasure and breathing hotly against Clint’s throat. There are little punched-out grunts and groans, but mostly he’s silent, the heated, devastating words he’d been pouring out like syrup lost in chasing his pleasure. Bucky comes with a choked-off moan, he face buried in the crook of Clint’s shoulder, warm come splattering between his thighs, and Bucky goes boneless on top of him for a long, breathless moment. 

When Bucky finally slides to the side Clint turns his head sluggishly to look at him. Bucky looks blissed out and contented, the crinkles of his eyes suggesting a smile that hasn’t quite reached his lips. He’s not even out of breath anymore, the bastard, and Clint makes a face at him. 

Bucky grins in response, reaching up to run his fingers through Clint’s sweaty hair. 

“Did you know?” Clint asks after a little while, when the wet spot is not just gross, it’s now _cold_ and gross, and the air across his bare skin isn’t comfortably cool it’s actually starting to get chilly, but he’s not in any hurry to move. This feels like a big moment, like the edge of a precipice, and he’s reluctant to disturb it, fearful of the result. 

“Did I know what?” Bucky asks, his brow scrunched up. 

Clint makes a vague gesture between the two of them. 

Bucky shakes his head. “Not… really?” He pauses to think about it, and Clint lets him, because he’s not sure how he feels about Bucky and him being some kind of destined thing, and he’s real sure he doesn’t feel great about Bucky knowing they were a thing before they were, you know, a thing. “I thought I recognized you, in Germany, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it, and then… you know… the Raft.”

Clint snorts. Yeah, he knows the fuckin’ Raft alright. He’s grateful Tony straightened it out, grateful the world governments saw the absolute absurdity of the Accords, but he’s never gonna quite be over the sting of betrayal. Clint doesn’t hold grudges - god knows he ought to, sometimes, especially where his brother is concerned - but he doesn’t forget the source of them either. 

“I didn’t really remember anything,” Bucky says quietly, “not until we went back. But now it’s all… it’s all in there, mostly, in bits and pieces. I remember… knowing no matter how bad it got, that I was gonna come out the other side, cos I had you waiting for me.” He reaches up to cup Clint’s jaw in his hand and stroke a thumb across his chin. “I knew it’d be bad,” he says, like he’s gotta make sure Clint understands. “I saw my arm, y’know? But I knew it’d be worth it. I knew I was gonna get drafted before I ever got the letter, cos how else was a guy like me gonna lose an arm? But you- you made it look _easy_ , with me. And when I woke up and Zola had me, I thought-” He snorts a bitter-sounding laugh. “When Steve rescued me in Azzano, you know? I thought at first it was _you_. And I was so relieved. And then it was Steve and I thought he was a goddamn hallucination.”

It’s a- something about it is horrifying, and at the same time, Clint’s heart is all squeezed up with emotions. It’s heavy, knowing that he was someone’s anchor, someone he didn’t even know, hell, he hadn’t even been _born_. He reaches out to run his fingers through Bucky’s still-short hair. It’s not the same as it was in the 40s - Clint cut it again, but this time he made Bucky get it wet first - it’s short but floofier on top, not pushed down with cream, and not a military regulation cut. It’s like the modern version of Bucky. A newer version. It’s Clint’s Bucky, instead of a Bucky who would one day _be_ Clint’s. 

“I just always knew it was gonna be alright cos I hadn’t met you yet. Even when Hydra wiped me, if they left me out too long I’d start to notice something was wrong. My arm was never _right_. I’d look down and be surprised - not ‘cos it was a prosthetic, but because it didn’t look like I was expecting. ‘Til I woke up in Wakanda and Shuri had this one all ready to go. It just felt right. And I still didn’t remember, but something about it was good. And something about meeting you - that was good too.”

Clint grins. “ _Yeah_ it was,” he says, trying to dispel some of the heaviness of the moment. Clint is not good with emotions. He is especially not good with the kinds of emotions that are spilling all over at the moment. Plus it took them about five whole minutes to fall into bed after that first meeting when Clint came home from the Raft. He wonders now if it’s because Bucky felt some vague sense of certainty about them, some pull that Clint hadn’t known - hadn’t had the context for - but he doesn’t regret it. 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “So no, I didn’t _know_ , but I think I’ve been in love with you for longer than you’ve been alive, and _now_ I know, and… Dr. Strange wasn’t wrong. About the timeline, about the future. Don’t think I could’ve done it if I hadn’t had something waiting for me afterwards. Some _one_ waiting for me.”

Clint is absolutely _not_ crying. It’s not tears that Bucky is wiping off his face with his thumbs, it’s something else. Sweat, maybe. 

Fuck, he’s crying. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Clint says, blubbery and choked the way words always sound when they come out through tears. “This isn’t fair, my brains are all gone and you’re telling me you love me.”

Bucky shrugs, but he doesn’t look regretful at all, just wipes at the fresh tears on Clint’s face. “I might be an asshole but I’m your asshole, you asshole.” It makes Clint laugh, snorting snot up his nose in a really unattractive way.

Dammit, this whole situation is unattractive as hell, messy and gross and weird and perfectly _them_. 

“This is the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m freezing and covered in jizz,” Clint grouches. “I love you too, you absolute dick. Gimme the blanket.”

Bucky ignores his request in favor of leaning in to kiss him, tears, snot and all. He rolls off of the bed to walk - naked, bless him - into the bathroom for a washcloth. He gets most of the mess wiped up before he’ll let Clint have the blanket, throwing the messy sheet into the corner of the room by the hamper, then clambers in behind him, supersoldier body heat warming Clint right up except for his toes, which he shoves between Bucky’s calves.

“Such an asshole,” Bucky mutters into the back of his neck, but he doesn’t move to dislodge Clint’s feet. 

“At least I’m pretty,” Clint yawns, drifting off on the weird euphoria of sex and emotional confessions and tears. 

“Yeah sweetheart, you’re real pretty,” Bucky drawls, as he untangles his arms enough to get at Clint’s hearing aids. When he settles back in, Clint interlaces their fingers - metal between flesh and bone, but it makes no difference to him - and drifts off secure in the knowledge that he is, and has been, loved. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Nny for the quick beta read on a fic that was already late!! All mistakes are still my own, as usual. 
> 
> PS. This fits my WHB square of "threesome" (they talk about their threesome, it counts). 
> 
> PPS. It also fits the Mandatory Fun Day prompt of "Bucky gets a haircut" though I'm a week late on that as well.


End file.
